Scarlet Globemallow

Sphaeralcea coccinea

Pollinator plant

No openly-licensed photograph of this species is in the catalogue yet. We show a photo only when we can credit the photographer.

Growing it

When	Flowers June to August
Type	wildflower
Sun	Full sun
Water	Low
Soil	pH 6.5–8.5
Hardiness	zone 3–9
Mature height	0.25 m
Mature spread	0.45 m
Spacing	0.3 m
Years to maturity	2
Bloom	Jun–Aug
Flower colour	Orange not verified, a genus-level estimate
In bloom	June July August
Native to	AB, SK

lobed leaves about 5 cm long

Where it has been recorded

BothSpecimensObservations

277 squares of about 28 km, each holding at least one record. A square is not a claim that the plant grows throughout it, and an unshaded square is unrecorded rather than empty. Darker squares hold more records, which follows roads and towns as much as it follows the plant. 30 herbarium specimens and 846 field observations this project may redraw. A filled dot is a pressed sheet somebody can re-examine; a hollow ring is a photograph identified by community agreement. Where the dots are dense is where people have looked, not where the plant is commonest, and empty ground is unsurveyed rather than unoccupied. How this map is made.

Which ecoregions the records fall in

Moist Mixed Grassland south AB / SK: 905 records, high confidence
Mixed Grassland south AB / SK: 774 records, high confidence
Fescue Grassland south AB: 213 records, high confidence
Aspen Parkland central AB / SK: 159 records, high confidence
Cypress Upland south AB / SK: 35 records, high confidence
Peace Lowland north AB: 14 records, medium confidence
Boreal Transition central AB / SK: 3 records, low confidence

These are counts of records collected somewhere in the region, which is the resolution of the evidence: the map above shows where inside it. A region with 3 records is not the same claim as one with three hundred, so the count travels with the region. A region missing from this list means nobody has recorded it there, which is not the same as the plant being absent. Records within 900 m of a border count for neither side, because the border is not drawn finely enough to say which one they are on. Source: GBIF occurrence search + PRESERVED_SPECIMEN pass, retrieved 2026-08-24. Boundaries digitised from the National Ecological Framework for Canada v2.2 (Ecological Stratification Working Group 1995), simplified to about 900 m for display: an outline is accurate to roughly a kilometre, not to the metre. How these counts are made.

See every observation, live and current, on GBIF or iNaturalist.

Documented animals

12 documented relationships.

nectar for

Brown-belted Bumble Bee Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Calligrapher Fly Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Common Checkered-Skipper Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Epicauta puncticollis Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Eupeodes volucris Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Hunt's Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Melissa Blue Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Red-belted Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Sweat Bees unattributed, no specific work recorded

pollen for

Agapostemon splendens Clements & F. L. Long 1923
Bumblebees unattributed, no specific work recorded
Leafcutter Bees unattributed, no specific work recorded

Also worth knowing

Safety

Toxicity not assessed, absence of a warning is not a guarantee of safety

Buying it

About $8–$16 per plant (estimate), usually from a native-plant nursery. Estimate (herb default); SK/AB retail as of 2026

Where these numbers came from

Flower detail: not verified, a genus-level estimate